James Doogue

Note: Enterovirus is not normally a reportable disease. It's also not uncommon for preterm babies to get infections and not be strong enough to survive. So it's possible hospitals in other countries are not reporting a spike in infant deaths. But these articles have caught my eye and only in the first article do they mention the elephant in the room!

Why are babies in Scotland suddenly dying at a rate that’s 300% higher than normal? May 2022
https://www.vaccinedeaths.com/2022-05-17-babies-scotland-dying-rate-300percent-higher-normal.html

For the second time in six months, a "very unusual” surge in baby deaths is said to be occurring, with the latest wave in March alone clocking in at 18 infant deaths over the course of four weeks.

Last September was the first wave, which saw 21 neonatal deaths reported. (Related: There is also a major uptick in adult deaths among those who are "fully vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus, or Covid-19.)

"The neonatal mortality rate was 5.1 per 1,000 live births in September and 4.6 per 1,000 in March, against an average of 1.49 per 1000 in 2019,” reported The Herald newspaper.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) did admit that the latest death spike is not the result of mere chance. It has not provided even a suspected cause, however, and insists that the September spike "remained a mystery.”

Myocarditis - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (infants) May 2023
https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2023-DON465

Between June 2022 and April 2023, ten neonates, under 28 days of age, presented with a picture consistent with myocarditis and a positive enterovirus PCR. Seven cases were treated in intensive care, and one case died before transfer to tertiary care. Cases presented with features of sepsis, myocarditis, or in cardiorespiratory arrest. The peak incidence of cases was in November 2022, with sporadic cases in other months.

France reports rise in severe neonatal infections from enterovirus variant
News brief June 1, 2023
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/enterovirus/france-reports-rise-severe-neonatal-infections-enterovirus-variant

French health officials have reported an unusual rise in neonatal sepsis cases that has led to seven deaths and involves enterovirus (echovirus-11 [E-11]), the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in an outbreak notice.

Between July 2022 and April 2023, nine cases were reported from four hospitals in three regions, all involving hepatic involvement and multiorgan failure. Seven babies died, and two are still hospitalized.

What Could Possibly Explain These Deaths?

RNA recombination appears to be a major driving force in the evolution of enteroviruses as well as in the shaping of their genetic architecture.

The mechanism of recombination of the RNA genome likely involves template strand switching during RNA replication, a process known as copy choice recombination.

RNA recombination is considered to be an adaptation for dealing with RNA genome damage and a source of genetic diversity.

It is also a source of concern for vaccination strategies, because live attenuated/mutated strains used for vaccination could potentially recombine with wild-type related strains, as has been the case with circulating vaccine derived polio viruses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm staggered by the lack of curiosity by governments and health authorities.

This is just another reason why Australia must have a full and wide ranging inquiry into our pandemic response. Unfortunately the media and politicians seem to have moved on.

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Carlos Velazquez

Uh oh. Using AI in a nuclear stealth bomber risks a Skynet/Terminator scenario, no? It could. If the implementers or decision makers go too far and are stupid enough to enable it to select its own targets

Future Strategic Bomber: Everything You Need To Know About The Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider
simpleflying.com

Now this use of AI I consider alarming. DARPA, a US advanced technology development agency, is funding AI research in Israel used to determine and document people's "social norms" violations. This could very easily become the US's version of the CCP's social credit system by which they track and control all citizens' social behavior.

AI System Detects Social Norm Violations - Neuroscience News
neurosciencenews.com

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Timothy Birdnow

I know, I know...it's been a while since I regaled you all with an Ozark Hilton tale. It's time to make amends for that.

Well, as best I can. I haven't been to the Ozark Hilton much at all; my last visit was in early May. I just haven't felt up to going, and when I have I've had other commitments, so the great trash heap in the oaks has suffered.

But it was reasonably cool and not so humid for July, and for once I felt pretty good - well enough to make the arduous and exhausting trek into the wilderness of south central Missouri.

It IS arduous too; I'm usually trying to recover for days after.  For one thing there is no electricity, so I have to forgo my CPAP machine, meaning I get little to no sleep there. I have severe sleep apnea and NEED the machine! (I suppose I'm like Darth Vader, more machine than man now, at least where sleep comes in.) I am able to sleep o.k. for a few hours in summer, even if it is sitting up in a chair. In winter it's much worse because I have to keep the fire going too, or wind up a Birdcicle. At any rate I don't get much sleep.

And even if I don't do a lot of work I still have a lot of stuff to unload and take in and set up. I have a cooler. I have a portable DVD player, and I bring a 12 volt battery to run it beyond the couple of hours the machine's battery gets. I bring down DVD's because otherwise once the sun goes down I either sit there doing nothing - something I enjoy, but only to a point, or I watch movies. I used to read, but my eyesight has gotten a bit too bad for that, especially in the low lifht. So I lug a bunch of movies down with me. And some CD's for the long trip (three hours).

I have to bring all my medications. And since someone robbed the place I now have to bring down batteries and battery-operated lights (which I need to augment my kerosene lamps).

I have to bring water - enough to assure me to last the night at least.  The Ozark Hilton is as dry as Mike Pence, and if I want to drink anything I have to tote it in.

Occasionally I have to bring in kerosene; I have a five gallon can I fill up and schlep down.

All this has to be carted from my pickup and taken inside. In winter I have to move a bunch of firewood in too.

This year - and last - I developed a problem; wasps settled into my babreque pit. I was going to move the pit out away from the cabin this winter, and take steps to guarantee the wasps didn't return. But I didn't make it down in time and they were present this spring when I finally got there.

And unlike wasps of summers past these guys aren't happy about me being there. Last year I got stung up good by them. And this year they are making life miserable. I have to keep one eye out for them every time I sit on the porch.

At any rate, I'll get back to the wasps; let's discuss this trip.

Not a whole lot to tell; everything went smoothly, by and large. I felt good, unusually good. I had a fine bowel movement at home - an important consideration in a place where eyou have to take a toilet seat out to a couple of cinder blocks.

I DID have to stop at my personal outhouse at St. Francois State Park. I've been "enjoying" that place for years now. It's usually clean, at least clean enough for a hole in the ground. I want to start a petition to get it renamed for me; I'm it's principle patron, even if I live sixty miles away from it. I can't pass the place without a stirring in my innards!

But this time the house had no toilet paper. It was clean, yes, but sans a very necessary item.

As it was crowded there anyway (being close to the playground) I moved on to a lesser-used outhouse in the park.

Drat if that wasn't out of toilet paper too! I don't know if the Park Service was just out or if this wasn't some money-saving program; you can use our hole but you must supply your own paper?

Didn't know and didn't really care. I had to go into the back seat of my pickup for the needed item.

Now the back seat of my Ford F150 is rather like the closet belonging to one Phineas J. Whooopie from the old Tennessee Tuxedo cartoon; open the back door to the truck at your own great peril!  All manner of things will spill all, and you may well be trapped beneath a pile of refuse and debris. I've got everything imaginable back there. (I guess I picked it up from my mother, who was a pack rat of old.)  I always have toilet paper back there - if I can find it.

Fortunately I was able to find it and unearth it without too much of an avalanche.

So I did my business and was on my way.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Traffic wasn't too bad and while it was a bit drizzly and overcast it never really rained.

I was worried as I approached the turnoff to the cabin; we had some pretty wicked storms roll through and there was a real possibility of fallen trees. I need not have feared; the road was clear, and nothing was amiss at the cabin itself.

And I didn't see any wasps buzzing about. I hurriedly packed all my supplies into the cabin, which looked good. Nobody had been inside, nor had critters made any sorts of messes.

But when I came out I saw a wasp flying about. He clearly was sent out to check up on me.

Drat! That meant I had to stay at most on the porch, and even then I would have to keep a watchful eye lest he decide I was too much trouble to guard and decided to run me off!

He did buzz over my way a couple of times as I sat on the porch, but eventually we reached a period of detente' and he kept to his side of the porch and I to mine.

The only bad thing was I needed a bottle opener from the truck and couldn't go to get it. I wound up using a pliars, which worked pretty well. But I dared not walk past the wasp's domain. I could have walked all the way around, but that's a bad deal; you have brush out there and will get ticks and chiggers, and there are holes in the ground obscured by fallen leaves that can lead to a fall and possibly a broken ankle. I avoid doing that as much as possible.

So I just made do with what I had.

I sat on the porch and enjoyed the silence. And it WAS silence too; no bird song, no crickets, nothing. I heard a woodpecker once, hammering away at some tree, but only for a moment. It was eerily quiet.

No armadilloes. No opossum. Nada.

So I hung out on the porch and serviced my many kerosene lights (I currently have eight in operation, though in the night one of them had the globe crack so it's out.)  I like as much light as I can get down there; it's still too dark, at least for me with my eye problems. The Atomic Beam langerns I bring down help a LOT provided the batteries are fresh. I use them sparingly, and have to remove the batteries afterward as they will be drained by the gadgets. Poor design. But they put out a LOT of light for portable lamps.

So anyway I sat out until I got a little cold and went in to watch movies. Brought down a bunch of different movies, but I pulled out the sci-fi movie Passengers which was o.k. (not great but o.k.)

I did hear one critter, I might add; something was rooting around inside the cabin where I couldn't see it. It was too big for a mouse; probably a rat. That would also explain why I have seen no evidence of mice; rats hate them and kill them for sport when they don't just eat them. (I don't blame the rats overmuch as I hate mice too but the rats are not an improvement.) I do worry; rats can carry any number of diseases and sharing my cabin with one doesn't make me sleep well at night. I wish that big old black ratsnake would come back; I didn't mind sharing the cabin with that fellow a bit! And it was rodent-free with HIM on the job!

Anyway, the night was uneventful and I slept pretty good for four or five hours, nearly a record for down there! Packed up early and the wasps were still a-snooze (they like to get up late in the morning like welfare recipients.) I was rolling down the highway by seven a.m.!

I drove up the road to Clearwater Lake and stopped at Piedmont Park - a camp ground just below the dam. It was crowded and the bathroom I had my eye on was full. So I drove around the park (I'd never actually done that) and it gave me an unsettled feeling as the earthen dam rose way above the campground; should that dam break nobody there would survive.

As I say it was crowded with people, most in campers, a number in dome tents. I saw one tent that looked like a small circus tent! I kid you not; it was round with a high pole and frill on the outside. Never seen anything like that at a campground.

Anyway the drive home ws uneventful and I made it back safe and sound. It's good to not have problems, but then the problems are what give me good stories. Sorry I didn't have any big events to speak about, but then it was what I needed - a quiet, peaceful getaway.

Cheers!

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Jerry S Rainforth

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Kurt Womack

I've been encountering more Leftists bringing up "living wage". Do they have any clue how economics works? And what is with the entitlement attitude about what people live in? This is a local group of environMENTALis

ts who oppose growth by strangling future water infrastructure development. So this person (protecting identity just to be nice) must think everyone should live in a large house on a lot with a white picket fence right from the start? The General Plan mandates Planned Area Developments, and so-called "Affordable Housing", with a smaller residence footprint than the normal subdivision. "Open Space" is also mandated, which robs land for building on, which triggers the supply and demand thing that seems to escape Leftists. Quote from the IMF:
[] Capitalism is often thought of as an economic system in which private actors own and control property in accord with their interests, and demand and supply freely set prices in markets in a way that can serve the best interests of society. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit. []
That's why communists hate Capitalism.
I'm not sure how to answer that person's question without flogging them.

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Jim Church

In Canada we only have the myth of a democracy. We are only permitted to vote for our local MP BUT not allowed to vote for PM directly. In a parliamentary demicracy with proper checks and balances this might not be a problem. In Canada though there are virtually no checks on the PM, or protection from the PM, if the PM goes rogue. In addition most critical government officials are not elected ( Governor General, Clerk and members of the Privy Council, attorney general, senators, Supreme Court, police commissioner, Chairs of Ministerial Boards, etc & etc.) but are all hand picked by the PM. The PM in Canada is the supreme ruler and if by chance anyone in the PM party should disagree, they are eliminated from caucus and not endorsed to run for office again.
In this regard then, Canada is a dictatorship whereby a very small area of the country and a disproportionat

e population (one local riding) decide who will be the fuhrer. Trudeau has taken full advantage of the system and not a soul can stop this lunatic from dictating and destroying.
It used to be that the nation’s media would be a significant check upon these excesses but Canada’s media have long since largely capitulated to the siren dictates of the "man with nice hair”, especially now that he controls how much taxpayer money gets directed their way to keep them afloat (like whipped puppy MPs who fear being kicked from caucus and banished to outer darkness, so too is today’s MSM).

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"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
— Richard Feynman

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Nikki Grace

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Timothy Birdnow

On Facebook Sherrie Mathieson (who thinks Trump has no chance of winning) says she thinks Tim Scott may be Trump's running mate.

I reply:

Scott seems to me to have the inside track. He's affable, he's polite, and he's black. I wish Trump would choose a more combative veep, if for no other reason than to protect his soon-to-be precarious health, but he won't; he doesn't like to be upstaged. (I still don't have a whole lot of use for Scott after some of the things he has said, including tacit support for the removal of the Confederate flag, a caving to political correctness and the BLM mob, and for his refusal to condemn the legal assaults on Mr. Trump, something that suggests he'll betray Trump in the future.)

Bear in mind Mr. Scott might well be acceptable to the Left, who would find it convenient to, uh, remove Donald Trump from the equation. Trump's veep pick needs to be someone who they fear putting in charge even more than Trump.

Also, I'm not sure how many voters Scott will bring to the dance. A big part of the veep selection is to balance the ticket and bring in people from swing states or places that the candidate needs shoring up. Do we really need to shore up South Carolina? I'd rather get someone from, say, Wisconsin.

If nothing else Scott will probably be more about Tim Scott than a loyal booster of the Trump Administration it seems to me. He'd be a good pick for a cabinet post but I think he would be of little help and possibly a major detriment to a Trump campaign and Presidency.

If nothing else the man has absolutely no understanding of the current political climate. He still thinks this is a gentleman's disagreement with well-meaning people and not the war that the Left has imposed on us. He's the kind of knock-kneed weakling the GOP is forever putting forward. And such cost us dearly and have cost us over many long years.

This doesn't sit well with Sherry. She says:
more...

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Jim Church

All the heat records from all 7 continents can be found in the 20th century and not the 21st. Strange that, eh?
Heat Records for the Seven Continents
Africa - 55C - Tunisia - July 7, 1931 - 87 years ago.
Antarctica - 19.8C - South Orkney Islands - January 30, 1982 - 36 years ago.
Asia - 54C - Israel - June 21, 1942 - 76 years ago.
Australia - 50.7C - South Australia - January 2, 1960 - 58 years ago.
Europe - 48C - Greece - July 10, 1977 - 41 years ago.
North America - 56.7C - California, USA - July 10, 1913 - 105 years ago.
South America - 48.9C - Argentina - December 11, 1905 - 113 years ago.
Seven continents - seven heat records - average no. of years that records have not
been broken as of year 2018 - 74 years.
Not one heat record for all seven continents can be found in the 21st Century.
How can this be if the hottest years evah have been in the 21st Century?

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Mark Musser

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Nikki Grace

Blackrock went over a trillion in managed funds, CVC Partners a buyout fund raised 26 billion, they are getting ready to clean up on the coming financial disaster for everyone else.

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Carlos Velazquez

Interesting. Makes sense. Also, as the average age of the population increases and retirement looms, the desire for hassle free living in a warmer climate intensifies. They don't call them snowbirds for nothing.

Americans Increasingly Choose a Warmer Life
cornwallalliance.org

Tim adds:

Who wants to freeze all winter? Cold doesn't come naturally to us and this idea a colder climate is better is daft. BTW the snowbird thing will dry up in the next twenty, thirty years as the climate Kommisars crack down on energy usage and air conditioning becomes more and more expensive. The whole phenomonon came about only after air conditioning made it possible to live in a sweltering swamp and be cool at night in your bed. As they are now waging war on air conditioning and other higher energy usage they will eventually make it so people stay up north in summer.

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Timothy Birdnow

Richard Feynman coined the term Cargo Cult Science in a speech he gave in 1974. The South Sea Cargo Cults were one of history's more odd events. During WWII the Americans and Japanese fought over these western Pacific islands and they often established air bases in places like New Guinea. Planes would land full of food; tinned food, coca cola, beer, cheese, etc. The air forces would hire locals to act as porters and the like. These primitive tribesmen saw this bounty and concluded that the cargo was sent by the gods and meant for their own people but the white men (and Japanese) had superior magic and confused the gods who sent it to them instead. So they tried to reproduce the white mens' superior magic, building faux landing strips complete with conning towers and "controllers" wearing coconut radio headgear and lighting them at night with torches.

Feynman's point was that there is much done (even back then) that has the superficial appearance of science but is not actual science. It starts with a predetermined result and the "research" is solely intended to prove the postulate. That describes our modern era perfectly.

Things like Climate Change are not tested in the original way, no effort is made to disprove the claims. Rather there is a fundamental postulate that is buttressed by supporting data and all contradictory data is thrown out.Anyone who argues the data does not support it are shouted down and erased. Any claim, no matter how specious, is accepted without challenge when it supports the hypothesis.

And why? Ultimately because the alarmist claims serve those in political power who control the purse strings and fund the Science Establishment. They want this because it means money (via new taxes) and power and moves our civilization along the lines they want it to move.

And the system is self-perpetuating because no young scientist will risk his career by bucking the accepted norm, while older scientists who aren't on board can be demogogued as "in the pocket of big oil" or whatnot. In the end actual science suffers.

It's not just Climate Change We are seeing this in the whole transgender debate now, overturning well-established research with novel research that purports to support the idea that "gender" is a cultural construct.

We've seen this in psychology for years, and so too in sociology, but it's creeping into the hard sciences now. We have people saying physics is racist because there is only one right answer. I would add our society is rooted in science and our mastery and acceptance of science. Cargo Cult Science is superstition and will lead to our retreat and eventual collapse.

Send in the Clouds

"The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people. Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists."

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Timothy Birdnow

So, the Attorney General in Michigan is charging Republican electors who filed as the true electors for the state after the Biden steal in 2020 with felony charges of fraud.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 individuals would get eight criminal charges, including two counts of forgery, which is a 14-year felony. The group includes Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden and Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

"It would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election,” Nessel said in a statement.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House after the charges were announced.

The group is alleged to have met on December 14, 2020, and signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the qualified electors for Trump. These false documents were then transmitted to the U.S. Senate and National Archives.

In January of last year, Nesselasked federal prosecutorsto open a criminal investigation into 16 Republicans.

Nessel alleged a "coordinated effort” among Republican parties in several battleground states, including Michigan, to push so-called alternate slates of electors with fake documents. She said she wants federal authorities to make an evaluation for possible charges.

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